New data on bat fossils from Middle and Upper Pleistocene localities of France

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) We describe the bat fossils preserved in four sites from the middle and upper Pleistocene, three of them being well-known French localities: the rock shelter of Les Valerots, the caves of l'Escale at Saint Estève Janson and ''du Prince'' at Grimaldi (Italy), and the filling of Combe-Grenal, all of them containing microvertebrate assemblages with yet undescribed bat fossils. All species represented in these four localities are still presently distributed in France and had been previously recorded in other Pleistocene localities of central and western Europe, including France. The four assemblages differ both in the abundance of bat fossils as in species composition. The characteristics of each assemblage are analysed under modern insights of bat taphonomy and ecology, and compared with those of other bat-bearing French localities of similar age. The relevance of these data concerning the use of the fossil bats to infer past environmental conditions is discussed.